Safety top guide for car doors



A ug. 4, 1925. 1,548,125

P. M. ELLIOTT SAFETY TOP GUIDE FOR CAR DOORS Filed May s', 1919,

Patented Aug. 4, 1925.

UNITED STATES i y 1,548,125 PATENT OFFICE.

rPana-cv ML ELLIOTT,

on CHICAGO, ILLINOIS;V NELLIE s. ELLIOTT, EXECUTRIX orl SAID PEncY n.ELLIOTT, DnCEAsEn, AssIGNoItlro CAMEL COMPANY, 0F CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ,alCORPORATION` oFILLINoIs.

SAFETY' 'roP GIJIDE Fon; can :occas Application filed May 3, 1919.ySerial No. 294,495.

T 0 all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, PERGY M. ELLIOTT, a citizen of the United States,residing at Chicago, in th county of Cook and State of Illinois, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Safety Top Guides forCarvr Doors, of which the following is aspeciication.

The object of the present invention is to provide a combinedwater-prooing and 4emergency supporting top guide for car doors whichwill remain normally free-running in thesense that its bar carried bythe door and its guide rail mounted onf the car are free from verticalsupport, the one upon the other, so long as the normal roller or othertraversing support remains in service, but nevertheless has its said barand rail so linterlocked vertically as to prevent the door dropping fromthe rcar in case the traversing support is carried away or seriouslyimpaired by accident, and so interlocked horizontally that it will onthe one hand afford a more effective barrier to weather elements, and onthe other hand will resist lateral displacement of the ldoor from itsguide rail when the latter assumes emergency support of the door.

Another object of the invention is to realize the conditions abovestated without material change in the vertical dimensions of the door ordoorway, as by having the in.- terlocking portions of the door and itsguide located below the top of the door. In some instances, thehorizontal interlock between the parts will be such as to normallyresist inward chang of the door against the car, as well as outwardtipping of the door, while still maintaining the guide :tree from thevertical load of the door.

In carrying out the invention, the guide rail carried by the car is madewith avertically opening trough that receives the rib, lip, or flangeextending from the curb rail on the door with a sulcient verticaloii'set therefrom to adapt it to enter said trough and to be confinedhorizontally by the sides of the latter, these members being upon a carand door having other and independent means affording normal verticalsupport to the door, so that the trough and the cooperating lip orflange are normally out of vertical bearing and come intoverticalsupport one upon the other only under emergency per portionl ofthe dooroutwardly,

impairment of the normal support of the door; the conlinement' of thedoor by the guide rail being such that the door cannot escape laterallytherefrom, either inwardly or outwardly, at the time of such emergencysupport, and the upper portion of the door being recessedv to admit theinterlocking parts within its y'outerplane f Severall embodiments of theinvention are shown in the accompanying drawings by way offillustration.In said drawings- Figure lshows a vertical section of a. door and itsassociated partsv in -a freight car structure 'to which the presentinvention' is applied; and f 4 are similar viewsof the upand`appurtenant parts of the car structure with modified constructions oftop guide applied thereto.

I According to VFigure 1 a car vstructure A has a sliding door Bassociated therewith through lany approved means such as traversingvroller support C, which is shown at the bottomy but which may lbe atthe topof Figures 2 to k,the door. In order to confine the top of thedoor against outward tipping, it is customary-t0 provide-acurb-bar onthe door and a guide rail on the car overlapping the same.

According to the present invention the guide rail 1 is provided for thispurpose, but to enable it to serve the additional purposes incident tothe present invention, it is provided with a trough 1a which opensvertically, its opening being presented upwardly in the severalembodiments here selected for illustration, while the curb-bar 2 on thedoor is deflected to provide a depending flange or tongue 2a (Figs. 2,3, and 4), or is formed with a bulb 2a (Fig. l) presented to the openingof the trough and in such relation to the latter that in addition to thehorizontal engagement of the curb-bar by the guide rail which preventsthe door from tipping outward as is usual, and in addition to verticalinterlock, so that the curb-bar can rest upon the guide rail in case thedoor is dropped by its normal support, the curbbar on the door isadapted to drop into the trough in case of an emergency, and when theparts are so engaged even though the door be entirely free at bottom andswing it cannot be displaced from its emergency support thus provided.

In addition to serving as an interlocking emergency support, the parts,when formed as above described, provide a more eiicient Weather-proolingfor the top of the door, particularly because of the' Vertical over-`lapping oi the parts. As shownin some of the embodiments, for instanceFigure 3, the portion 2- of the cur'b-bar-may dip suiic-iently into thetrough 1a of the guide rail to provide chafing surfaces which 'act'inthe normal condition of the door and so serve as means for preventing'the door from `changzthe side of the car.vk

Various forms ofstructural metal may be employed in realizing theseveral features of the present invention, and various Ways of applying`the same lto the car structure and its door may 'be 'resorted to. l

According to Figures l, 2, and 3,' the guide rail 'secured to the sideplate of the c'ar'a-nd the curb-bar attached to the inncr face 'of the'door and extending Vacross the top thereof are otisetoutwardlysufficiently to permit the intcrengaging part-s to be droppedbeloWth'e-top ot the door into a recess provided to receive them.According to Figure '4: a similar result is vobtained by lsecuring thecurb-bar tothe outer face of the door.

In Wooden'doors the-upperhportion of the outer 'sheathing of the door iscutaway to v cured to the inner tace of the door, but a special form ofguide rail, depending directly from the side plate of the car and offsetinwardly into a recess formed in the upper end of thedoor, adapts thedevice to be used in an ari'angenaentof door which is Whollywithin theoutside lines of the car structure.

The variousfornis herein illustrated Will be sufficient to indicate theWide variety` of arrangements that may be devised for realizing theconditions of the present invention.

I claim:

In combination with a car door having a normal traversing support, acombined Weather proofing and Vemergency supporting top guide comprisinga curb-baranda guide-rail, said cui-babar carried by the car door andhaving a vertically presented portion spaced from the door, said guiderail carried by the car in position to overhang the top of the door;said curb-bar and guide-rail being normally free from vertical support,one upontheother, but adapted the one to rest upon the other in anemergency, andthe guide-rail being constructedto project beneath andoverlap vertically both inner and outer faces of the verticallyYpresented portion of the curb-bar, the upper :portion of the doorbeingA recessed to admit said interlocking parts Within the .plane ofitsiouterface. y

Signed at Chicago, Illinois, this 22nd d-ay of April,v 1919.

PERGY M. ELLIOTT.

